1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical apparatus for picking up an image inside a subject.
2. Description of the Related Art
An endoscope, as a medical apparatus, for insertion into a subject and with image pickup means provided at a distal end portion has been widely used in a medical field and other fields.
Further, in order to make it possible to smoothly perform an examination with an endoscope inserted into a luminal organ of the subject or a treatment by a treatment instrument in accordance with an examination result, or the like, a medical apparatus in combination with information of a CT apparatus and the like has been proposed.
For example, a surgery support apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-7041, as a first conventional example, comprises a three-dimensional position detecting device for detecting a location of an endoscope sequentially, image creation means for creating a surgery support image to be superposed on an image by the endoscope and coordinate integration means for integrating coordinates of the three-dimensional position detecting device and image coordinates which the image creation means has.
The image creation means creates the surgery support image to be superposed on the image by the endoscope using three-dimensional volume image data of a subject picked up by an MRI, etc. By the coordinate integration means, even when a position and a direction of the endoscope are changed, it is configured that the surgery support image can be displayed as being superposed in consistency with the direction of the endoscope with a relative position thereto maintained.
Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-131042, as a second conventional example, discloses an insertion support system for supporting an endoscope inserted into bronchia by creating a virtual endoscopic image at a plurality of bifurcation points of the bronchia.